


these eyes seek not the truth, but they find it

by twilighteve



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, Ghosts, Psychic Abilities, Psychic Ryan Bergara, Ryan-centric, Shane is followed around by a ghost, Spirits, or something. it may or may not be a ghost, ryan sees dead people, why isn't there more psychic ryan fics tho he literally joked about having the vision
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-18
Updated: 2018-04-18
Packaged: 2019-04-24 13:56:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14356890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twilighteve/pseuds/twilighteve
Summary: “I once fell into a pile of bricks when I was a kid. And after that I could see ghosts.”It wasn’t something Ryan just told people about, how he could see ghosts.





	these eyes seek not the truth, but they find it

 

_“I once fell into a pile of bricks when I was a kid.”_

_“What?”_

_“And I don’t remember much of it after that.”_

_“What?!”_

* * *

 

He wasn’t sure when exactly he had started to see the wispy figures and shadow people that others seemed to pass by with perfect clarity, but he was pretty sure the bricks incident was what caused it. He remembered seeing blurs of wisps that day, but he never spoke about it. He always thought it was just the side effect of falling off a tree and hitting a pile of bricks.

After his injuries had healed off, he knew for sure he wasn’t just seeing things. The wispy figures and shadow people were real, and they were there for him to see. No one else seemed to be able to see them.

He hid it from others. It was cool that he could see ghosts, sure, but for some reason he wanted to keep it private. It felt more appropriate that way, somehow. Like it was his little special thing no one would know about, and the ghosts were his friends only he could talk to. It made him feel good. It made him feel special.

The ghosts he talked to seemed to agree this was a good decision. Ryan happily went on with his little secret, telling no one about it.

* * *

_“Yeah, I was climbing cause we were playing hide-and-seek, I was trying to hide and thought I had the best hiding spot – turns out I was wrong, the branch broke and I just fell.”_

* * *

 

What Ryan realized pretty early on was that ghosts were absolutely _everywhere_. They occupied the space just as much as any living person, flitting about minding their own business. Sometimes they stayed in one place, as if attached. Sometimes they move around freely, but only in a confined area. Sometimes they visit several places and made rounds.

Sometimes they stuck with someone living and shadowed them. Usually just for a while. Sometimes permanently.

This was what stuck out to Ryan. Many people had them, ghosts following them around and glaring at other entities that seemed threatening to the humans they were shadowing. More often than not, they’d also glare at other humans that made their preferred humans annoyed or uncomfortable.

Some of them, however, seemed to despise the humans they were shadowing and made an effort to make their lives miserable. Untying shoelaces merely minutes after being tied, falling cups of drinks, shifting things to trip people up. It was fortunate, really, that most of them didn’t have enough power to actually do lasting harm.

Most of the ghosts Ryan had met and talked with were nice.

Some were not.

* * *

 

_“This explains a lot… you fell into the – “_

_“And after that I could see ghosts.”_

* * *

 

Later on, Ryan would happily went with his day knowing he had done the right thing to keep his vision a secret, because apparently a lot of people think of it as a load of bullshit and he wasn’t about to just announce his ability to the world so people could mock him as the kid who thought he could see dead people.

He would also skittishly went with his day glancing left and right, avoiding ghosts that occupied the space around him and pretending he couldn’t see them.

As a kid, it didn’t take him long to realize he was the only one who could interact with the spirits around him. It didn’t take long to realize he could touch them, and they could touch him back as though they were still alive, and it didn’t take long for him to realize how happy this made them.

It shouldn’t have taken him so long to realize that it also meant they could hurt him easily, too.

So this was how he went by, seeing see-through spirits and pretending to not see the wispy outlines of their bodies for fear of inexplicable wounds like he had had to endure as a kid. Fear became a constant, a nearly inseparable part of his life. It was horrible at first, but slowly he adjusted to it, the fear shrinking in size into a more manageable portion in his life, always present but more easily navigable.

And then Queen Mary happened, and suddenly he had an _excuse_.

Before he had to cover up why he was scared of things, how uncomfortable so many floating figures made him, but Queen Mary gave him an excuse not to hide. He still didn’t say he could see the dead, of course, but he could say this was why he believed in ghosts. He could say he was scared, and people would find it weird, they might even find it funny, but at least it wasn’t a baseless fear. There was a reason behind it.

Years later, he would pitch an idea for a show about unsolved mysteries, end up periodically visiting haunted places despite his usual efforts to stay away from them, and laugh at the mess that was his life.

* * *

 

Ryan silently berated himself internally at the words he had blurted out without a speck of thought. He kept a smile plastered on his face, but his heart pounded nervously.

How was he so sloppy? This was something that he had kept to himself since he was a kid, and a simple conversation with Shane was somehow enough to bring it up to the surface, and on-cam, too. He hated that sometimes, about Shane. For some reason it was so easy to talk to him, so easy to let slip things he wouldn’t normally talk about with other people. He had chalked it up to their unconventional sense of humor, but it was still alarming how comfortable he was at talking about weird shit with him.

However, Shane’s gaze turned from shocked to unamused in record time. Ryan didn’t know if it comforted him or not, to see Shane shutting down his slip-up confession without so much of a thought. “I don’t think it gave you the vision.”

A smile stretched itself on Ryan’s face and he heaped on a joke to make it seem like a silly little conversation. “It gave me my eyes,” he said, purposefully lilting his voice dramatically.

“I think it put a hole in your brain,” Shane responded drily.

Ryan laughed. Maybe it did, he wouldn’t know for sure. His eyes wandered to Shane’s shoulder, where a small figure of a child hung onto Shane’s neck. Ryan had never been able to determine the child’s gender, but what he knew for sure was that Shane picked them up in Sally House.

Apparently him laying down on a pentagram and screaming for demons to eat his heart got him an entity that attached themselves to him like glue. Ryan had never seen the entity leave Shane’s side ever since, and he wasn’t sure if they were a ghost or a demon or something else entirely, but the fact that they had repeatedly hissed at other entities that came near Shane and right up scratched them when they reached out was something that provided comfort to Ryan, especially when Shane began insulting ghosts and demons in locations. Evil or not, at least it was clear to Ryan that the entity liked Shane and wanted to keep him safe. That was a good thing, at least.

The entity was currently staring intently at him with a pair of blazing white eyes that seemed to be able to stare deep into Ryan’s soul as if assessing him. Ryan looked away before it became apparent that he knew the entity was there, but the childlike figure just grinned a knowing smile. Ryan suppressed a shudder.

Shane, screw his keen eyes, saw it. “Hey, you okay?” he asked softly.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Ryan assured. “Just a little tired, really.”

It was unfair how much Shane could infuse worry and care into his voice and gaze when barely even a minute ago he was joking and looking at Ryan like he was the biggest dumbass in the world. That was the sort of gaze he was using on Ryan. It made Ryan squirm, knowing he was hiding something from him.

“You know you can talk to me about whatever,” Shane commented off-handedly. “We’ve slept together in dusty rooms covered in cobwebs and rat hair. We can handle some touchy feely talks.”

“I know,” Ryan answered. “Thanks, but I’m okay.”

“If you say so.”

The entity that hung on Shane’s shoulders slid off Shane’s back and climbed Ryan’s. He immediately stiffened, fear gripping his chest and squeezing tightly, anticipating any pain that would come from the entity harming him in some way or another.

But the entity simply wrapped their too-long arms around Ryan’s head and nuzzled his hair as if providing comfort before sliding off and returning to Shane’s shoulders. Ryan couldn’t help but stare, wondering if this meant the entity had claimed him as theirs just like they had obviously claimed Shane. He found this thought to be both oddly comforting and scary at the same time.

“Ry? You sure you’re okay?” Shane asked slowly as he placed a hand on Ryan’s shoulder and rotated him slightly so he could get a better look at Ryan’s face.

“Just tired, man,” Ryan reassured. “Come on, let’s finish recording already.”

Sometimes Ryan wondered if Shane would truly accept it if he was to actually tell him seriously that he saw dead people. Probably not, since Shane was dead-set in his opinions that ghosts don’t exist, but sometimes he looked at Ryan with this sort of knowing look in his eyes that Ryan wondered. Maybe someday he would tell Shane.

That day was not today.

**Author's Note:**

> 16 yo me, closing an RPF tab: that was cool but i don't think i'll ever write one  
> 21 yo me, chugging cheap wine from a plastic cup: *in singsong* not yet anyways
> 
> come yell at me about bfu in my tumblr: [wheezebuddies](https://wheezebuddies.tumblr.com/)


End file.
